


bisous, bisous

by clarewithnoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Kissing, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), No Plot/Plotless, Romance, Short & Sweet, The Three Broomsticks (Harry Potter), Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, etc etc - Freeform, jily, just altogether quite cute I think, pro tip don't listen to Good Days by SZA whilst single on Valentine's Day, truly not a plot to be found except for 'they kiss uwu'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29440284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarewithnoi/pseuds/clarewithnoi
Summary: Lily’s mouth is painted scarlet and pulled into a girlish pout across the table.  She’s been sipping a glass of butterbeer, so the glass that sits near her elbow has a phantom smile staining the rim, and the smallest bit of her lipstick has smudged a rogue whisper onto the crest of pale skin that sits right below her lips.  James is accosted, rather desperately, by a desire to kiss a trail from the center of her mouth down to the column of her neck and see what bits of crimson are left in his wake.“It’s criminally unfair,” he says to her after setting his own butterbeer down, “that you should choose to look like this when I have to share you with other people.”Short, Valentine's Day Jily sweetness.  Happy V-Day everyone! xo
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 35
Kudos: 82





	bisous, bisous

**Author's Note:**

> smooches to all of you!!
> 
> INSPIRED BY: Ron Hick's beautiful painting "Café Kiss." He's a wonderful American impressionist, would recommend checking out his works!
> 
> and onward...

Lily’s mouth is painted scarlet and pulled into a girlish pout across the table. She’s been sipping a pint of butterbeer, so the glass that sits near her elbow has a phantom smile staining the rim, and the smallest bit of her lipstick has smudged a rogue whisper onto the crest of pale skin that sits right below her lips. James is accosted, rather desperately, by a desire to kiss a trail from the center of her mouth down to the column of her neck and see what bits of crimson are left in his wake.

“It’s criminally unfair,” he says to her after setting his own butterbeer down, “that you should choose to look like this when I have to share you with other people.”

It’s true. What parts of her are usually covered by Hogwarts robes are instead adorned in a laced white dress that makes him think of weddings—whether this was intentional on her part, he’s not sure. Her hair is tied up and away from her face. She’s done something to her eyelids and lashes that renders them dark and sultry and entirely unsuited for the pub setting surrounding them.

“Share me?” She echoes with a quirk of brow. The movement brings attention back to eyelid and lash, which then brings attention to bright green iris, which in turn obliterates any attention at all. “And who might you be sharing me with? I’m only here with _you_.”

“That may be true,” he concedes, “but other people still get to look at you. I’m having trouble reconciling that fact at present.”

“I hardly think anyone in here is looking at me, James.”

“I’ve never known you to be a particularly competent judge of the subject.”

At this, she scoffs, and his eyes are forced back to rouge lips. Every feature on her face is a trap. He looks forward to getting caught each time.

“It’s Valentine’s Day, you cretin. Don’t you think everyone’s looking at their dates?”

“Being on a date with someone never stopped me from staring at you. Honestly, woman, where have you _been?”_

She laughs openly at this, and it’s honey and lavender and the rush of pushing off the ground to enter flight. Rouge lips now contrast white teeth in a small, sardonic smile.

“How idiotic of me to assume the petty jealousies would end once I actually became your girlfriend,” she sighs at the tail end of a giggle.

The lights in the Three Broomsticks are dim and tinted a saccharine pink to accompany the holiday’s crowd. Swirling love hearts and glittering cupids make rounds from couple to couple across the pub. The two of them have only arrived not twenty minutes ago from a traipse around Hogsmeade, so they’re the favorite attraction for the various enchantments, one after another in gratuitous Valentines spirit. James swats a wispy, spell-born rose away from Lily’s ear before it leaves sparkling petals in the elaborate knot she’s done to her hair.

 _It’s called a chignon,_ she’d said earlier when he eyed it openly in the Heads Commons, _it’s French_.

He notes silently—and not for the first time since leaving the Heads Commons—that chignons are very, very nice.

“Lily,” he says with a theatrical roll of his eyes that’s purely for her benefit, “Whenever I’m not with you, you can rest assured I’m passing the time being jealous of the past me that was.” 

These types of sentiments come easily to James. Sometimes he wonders if there’s a part of him that’s afraid that if he doesn’t say them out loud, Lily won’t know how deeply these feelings run in his veins. Other times he just thinks that they’ve built up for so long that they’ve no choice but to spill across his lips before he can think to stop them. He can’t be entirely sure. 

A pout reforms on her mouth at his declaration. He thought he saw it flicker for a moment, but she apparently has the strength of conviction to bend her features back to her will, because the only lasting shift of her person is a lean forward onto her elbows. Her face is a few inches away from his own. 

James knows this pout and is painfully fond of it; it’s not an _I’m displeased with you_ pout, but with the way her chin tilts up and her eyes drag down toward his lips, it’s _kiss me now_.

There’s not a time he can imagine when a show of desire from Lily Evans will not cause a heady rush of excitement. He’s thought about it before, lying awake in bed, wondering if the feeling might go away after twenty or thirty years together. He tries to picture her at forty, with crow’s feet and spots of age around her face, pressing her lips forward and lifting her chin like this, and then he pauses, waiting to see if he feels the thrill. It comes every time.

James leans just the barest hint forward. Their faces are but a hair’s breadth from each other. What a life he lives, to be invited this close to her.

“You’ve got just a bit of lipstick smudged off your lip, darling,” he whispers.

“Oh?” Her gaze flickers from his lips to his eyes and back down. It’s very nearly cruel. “Do you plan on fixing it for me, then?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. I plan on making it much worse.”

Lily hums against a burgeoning smirk. “Well, I guess you’d better get to it, then.” 

“I guess I should.” 

It’s a mixture of physical effort and the inevitable pull of gravity that brings James’s lips to meet hers. He sits forward and places weight on his elbows to keep his hands from cupping the back of her head and tangling in the neat fixture of her hair. _It’s a chignon,_ he reminds himself, _it’s French._

A soft sigh emerges between them, but whether it’s hers or his he can’t be bothered to find out. He drags his tongue across the seam of her lips. The lipstick is cherry flavored. It’s just a touch too sweet, but at the same time, it’s part of kissing Lily Evans, so he’s at peace with it immediately.

For James Potter, kissing his girlfriend is an experience that transcends the physical aspect. Sirius would hex him silly for such a ridiculous thought—but it’s true in the basest, most intrinsic of ways. 

Kissing Lily Evans is the sweetest reckoning with the failings of his past, to know that he wasted so much time in a world where the only way he knew her smile was to see it, and not to feel it pressed against his lips. 

In fact, when they pull back, she’s smiling, and sparks shoot from his toes to his fingers and up to send heat to the tips of his ears. 

The fulfillment of his earlier plan sits evident in red swipes outside the confines of her mouth. James finally gives into a dormant urge and brings his right hand up to brush the latent stains away with his thumb. The way she parts her lips at his touch sends a shiver down the column of his spine.

“Minx,” he admonishes hoarsely.

It’s apparent from the shine in her eyes that she has no qualms with this assessment. 

“You’ve got a bit of lipstick yourself, love,” she says.

“Mind getting it off for me?”

“Why would I?” Lily leans forward again, and James thinks it might be his own heart swirling around their table, because he can’t be sure he feels it in his chest. “I’d just be replacing it the next minute.” 

“The next minute, you say?”

The next minute indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! please drop a comment or favorite line or something of the like! I love to read what you all think!!
> 
> as always, come say hi on my Tumblr, @clare-with-no-i! I love to answer questions and talk about my works etc etc.
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!! <3


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